The Big Domino in the Sky - Nonfiction Atheist Fiction

An Atheist Tries to Loosen Up...

Atheists spend an awful lot of their time focusing on what's correct and what's incorrect.
I ought to know, I'm an atheist myself. We get all uptight writing treatise after
treatise about how the arguments for religion are weak and how the logical
alternative is atheism. I think it's important for us to do so, if for no other reason
than to clarify our own thoughts. After awhile, however, all this treatising gets
really dull. Sometimes we atheists really need to loosen up.

Michael Martin tries to do so with his book The Big Domino in the Sky. His
intention is to add a work of atheist fiction to the libraries full of atheist non-fiction.
A collection of short stories written from the atheist perspective is a great idea
whose time has come.

...By Replacing His Tuxedo With A Business Suit

Unfortunately, the execution is not so great. Although this book is technically a
work of fiction, it ends up reading like non-fiction. The problem is that each story is
actually a treatise. Sure, there are characters, but they end up doing nothing but
debating the merits of different aspects of atheism. For example, one story set in
the future consists of nothing more than a series of letters written back and forth
between two academics. What do they write about? Atheist theory!

The Big Domino in the Sky hits the reader over the head with its literal focus.
What atheist fiction needs to do is to incorporate the power of metaphor.
Religions have been doing this for ages, to strong effect. It isn't necessary to talk
about atheism to talk about atheism. Atheism can be more than a denial. It can
be an assertion as well. An atheist mythology would go a long way toward proving
this point.